


Phase Five

by Finally_Facing_Failure



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Best Friends, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finally_Facing_Failure/pseuds/Finally_Facing_Failure
Summary: Dan suddenly realizes he wouldn’t mind having a boyfriend. He and Phil decide to make a plan to find Dan a boyfriend, but life, as usual, doesn’t go as expected.





	

Sometimes something happens in your life, that makes you want to just hit yourself in the face repeatedly while deleting yourself from human existence. Mostly, these things are awkward encounters of all kinds, but this is a story about realizing your own stupidity, and feeling completely dumbstruck and idiotic because of it. This is a story of how (cliché as it may sound) the best thing in your life may just be right in front of you, if you just open your eyes and have the courage to see it.

It was the end of the school day, and Dan and Phil were doodling in Dan’s notebook during their physics class. The teacher was a young man named Mr. Liguori, but they were allowed to call him PJ. He was a pretty cool guy, but no teacher in the world could change the fact that Dan and Phil were simply not interested in physics at all. And thus, they decided to spend the entire lesson drawing figures in Dan’s notebook, whilst pretending to be taking notes. They had just finished drawing fire breathing space dragons with a bad attitude (which they swore made sense if you’d been there) when Dan started doodling little hearts at the top of the page, whilst complaining about how he didn’t know how to draw hearts.

“Ugh, these are literally the most badly-drawn hearts I’ve seen in my entire life! It’s like I’m cursed and now I won’t be able to draw two identical sides of a heart until a prince comes and kisses me or something…”

“What are you talking about? Your hearts are way better than mine.” Phil said, as he started to draw hearts too.

“Are we even looking at the same thing? Mine look like weirdly shaped potatoes!” Phil laughed and he started to draw misshapen hearts in different colours, and writing Dan’s initials in them. “This looks like I’m some insane girl that’s madly in love with someone and can’t muster up the energy to think of something else!” Dan laughed. Phil laughed too, drawing lips and flowers next to the hearts. “Actually I don’t think I’d mind being in love.” Dan said, staring out of the window. “What do you mean? Are you in love with someone?” Phil said, chuckling at him. Dan blushed, feeling weird for having said that out loud. “No I’m not, I’m just saying that a boyfriend wouldn’t be such a bad idea, I guess…” It was a well-known fact around school that Dan was gay, and since apparently not everyone in the world is an asshole, he even found himself being accepted by a lot of people in his school.

Phil stayed quiet for a while, thinking. “I have an idea. Why don’t we write down the name of every guy in our year and eliminate the ones that you’d never want to date?” Dan looked at him, surprised. “You’re helping me then?” “Of course Dan, that’s what I’m your best friend for!” Phil grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and started writing, looking around the classroom to get more names.

“NO WAY! You cannot write down Jeffrey! That guy calls me Gaylord every time I enter a room he’s in!” Dan angrily whispered. “We have to put him on the list! He’s a candidate until we eliminate him in phase 2.” Phil says. “Oh so we have phases now huh? Fine put him on there.” Phil smiled and together they continued their list, arguing now and then if they could choose their friend Katie’s brother, or if they could write down the weird kid that sat in the back of their chemistry class and farted during tests. “Phil why are you putting yourself down? I’m not going to date you!” Dan said, laughing. “Yes but technically I’m a candidate! You also wrote down Chris, and you’re not going to date him either.” “Okay fine, weirdo.” Dan said, giving in. Just then the bell rang. They’d written down 72 names, so they decided that would be enough. They agreed to continue the next day, and they did just that.

 

It was Friday morning, their first mutual class being music. Their teacher for this class was Miss Clark. She was a nice woman, but she got distracted sometimes during class, and often left to get coffee so she could concentrate better. Dan and Phil thought it was great, as that gave them the opportunity to discuss qualities that should be taken into consideration during the elimination process.

“Okay, phase 2. You need to pick three things you want your future boyfriend to have or not. It is crucial that we make sure your boyfriend doesn’t break up with you within a week, because then it doesn’t really count.” “Hey for the record, I would be the one doing the breaking up!” Dan said. Phil shot him a look, and then snorted. “I’m serious Phil! I have very high standards!” Dan laughed, shoving Phil a little. “Whatever makes you sleep at night!” Phil laughed.

“Okay you need to have those three qualities done by Monday, make sure there are at least around twenty people left, or else we won’t have enough people for phase 3.” “And what’s that Philly?” Miss Clark entered with a steaming cup of coffee, looking slightly less disorientated than she had before she’d left. Phil whispered at Dan: “Well that’s when the stalking begins of course!” Dan’s head shot up, and he looked at Phil to see if he was serious or not. “Phil? What the hell?” He whispered when Phil pretended not to notice Dan staring at him. “I’m just kidding dude! I mean finding out whether or not their single or not.” Phil giggled.

Dan sighed, why was he doing this again? Oh yeah, boyfriend. Regardless of the fact that Dan did actually have friends, he felt lonely sometimes. He just didn’t have anybody to snuggle up to, besides Phil of course, but that was platonic. Miss Clark continued her class, by explaining different genres of music and giving examples of every genre. Dan laughed when the class had to try to fit Twenty One Pilots into a category, which they decided was alternative rap with a side of trash. At the end of the day Dan walked home on his own, as Phil still had a biology class. He started thinking of what he’d want his future boyfriend to be like, and he thought of that all weekend.

He also entertained the idea of going to parties and outings with his boyfriend, showing him off. He had to admit it was quite a good thought, showing up to some asshole’s party with a hot date, instead of going with Phil again and hearing whispers whenever they stood too close to each other. It was sort of tiring, always having to explain that just because he was gay, doesn’t mean he wants to snog every guy that stands within three feet of him.

 

On Monday morning, Dan proudly showed Phil his list of qualities, and which guys had made it through phase 2.

  1. Must be (at least sort of) smart. (“What Phil? I don’t want to date someone who doesn’t even know how to spell existential crisis!”)
  2. Must be attractive to a certain extent. (“Yes I know that is superficial but fight me.”)
  3. Must understand at least some of the nerd-crap that I say 24/7. (“I’m not even going to explain, you understand this one.”)



By eliminating the candidates that did not have these qualities, Dan had 13 guys left. “Dan! I told you we needed twenty boys! Can’t you count? Now we don’t have enough people to stalk!” Phil said, looking at Dan’s list. “Well it doesn’t really matter does it? We can just stalk these!” Dan laughs. “Yeah, whatever. Okay phase 3. Who of these lovely gentlemen is actually single?” Phil said. “I wouldn’t mind being breaking a couple up to get to my happy ending…” Dan said jokingly, getting a sharp look from Phil in return.

“Well I know these three have boyfriends.” Phil said, crossing names off the list. “Hey, I’m still on there!” He said, surprised. “Yeah well, you fit the qualities. Cross Jamie off too, I think he has a girlfriend across the country.” Dan said nonchalantly. And so there were 9 boys left. Dan and Phil looked at everyone’s Facebook profile, and were able to cross two more off the list. “Alrighty! Seven gentlemen that have made it through phase 3! Certainly one of these stunning young men will be able to woo our prince?” Phil said, pretending to be on some sort of TV show. Dan laughed at him, grateful for Phil’s easiness on this matter. It must be weird for him, a straight guy, to help Dan look for a dude, but Phil’s been completely fine with everything. Gosh, Dan did really have an awesome best friend.

“So what’s phase 4?” Dan asked curiously. “I know you don’t like this, but you need to talk to everyone on this list. You won’t know if you’ll really like them until you talk to them.” Phil said apologetically. “I’ll be fine. I have classes with most of these guys today, so I’ll talk to them then.” Dan said just as the bell rand, signalling it was time for their first class of the day.

And so Dan had an extraordinarily productive day, talking to the people on his list. The first guy, Freddie Jones, turned out to be a bust within the first three sentences of their conversation, in which Freddie admitted he did not like Jennifer Lawrence. Also, Dan noticed, Freddie had on socks in his sandals, which looked even more ridiculous because his socks were bright orange.

Number two, Ahmed Tahiri, turned out to be obsessed with fitness. It took Dan about five minutes to think of an excuse as to why he needed to leave immediately, but in those minutes he learned everything there was to know about doing push ups. As Dan was about as into sports as he was into girls, Ahmed was crossed out too. The next guy he spoke to actually seemed pretty cool. Is name was Felix Kjellberg, but he was also a no-goer, as turned out when he mentioned his not-so-secret girlfriend, a girl in their year named Mazia.

Guy number four was Michael Aylward, who was way too smart to be Dan’s boyfriend. Seriously, the guy couldn’t freaking shut up about physics (Yawn). Number five wasn’t that bad, but he turned out to be married. Yeah. Married. Seriously, Tom Fletcher had married Giovanna two months ago, but not a lot of people knew, because they didn’t want to be the couple that got married at eighteen (Which seemed weird to Dan: if you don’t want to be that couple, then don’t get married so soon…).

Numbers six was the last candidate besides Phil. His name was Lenn Gardner, and he was nineteen years old. He repeated one year, but he was still quite smart. He was definitely attractive and nerdy, but the best part about him, was that he was openly gay too. When Dan spoke to him, he was a tad nervous, as this was exactly the kind of guy he’d want to date. Lenn was nice, and he turned out to be into exactly the same anime as Dan. Dan talked to him all the way through his free period, and at the end of the hour he had scored Lenn’s phone number and an invitation to a party on Friday.

Dan smiled as he said goodbye, Lenn was definitely nice, and would certainly make a good boyfriend. He reported this to Phil, who didn’t seem so excited at the news, but in a flash his disappointed face made place for a bright smile. “That’s great Dan! So, are you going Friday?” Dan’s smile disappeared, he’d been so focused on the whole potential boyfriend thing, that he hadn’t even thought of if he’d like to go or not. “Well I don’t know, Phil… I mean Lenn’s nice and all but I don’t really know anybody who’s going. I don’t even think I like Lenn.” “You don’t like Lenn? I though you just said that you did?” Phil said, confused. “I like him, I just don’t LIKE like him you know…” Phil smiled softly at Dan and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “It’s all right Dan, you can’t force phase 5.” Dan looked up, and lifted his eyebrows at Phil. “What is phase 5?”

Phil looked at Dan with a mischievous smile. Without saying anything at all, he dropped his arm and started to walk away. “PHIL! What is phase 5?” Dan laughed, running after him. Phil ignored him whenever he asked that question for the rest of the day, and also the next. But on Tuesday evening, Dan got a text from Phil.

**Dan, be ready to be picked up at 6 o’clock this Friday.**

Dan smiled to himself, Phil was so sweet! He probably wanted to take Dan to the party, so that Dan wouldn’t have to go by himself. It was nice of Phil, though Dan doubted that he really wanted to go. He liked Lenn as a friend, but going to his party would probably insinuate there was more going on than there actually was. Nevertheless, if Phil wanted to go too, Dan wouldn’t complain.

 

So he found himself all dressed up on Friday evening, waiting to be picked up. His mom absolutely beamed at him when he came downstairs. “Oh my Daniel, you look absolutely stunning! Do you have a date?” She asked, whilst fixing his hair. “No mom, it’s just Phil.” Dan said, pushing her hands away from his face. “Well that could be a date, you never know who you might fall in love with!” His mom said, and she told the story of how she’d fallen in love with Dan’s dad again, like she had a thousand times before. “… and then he turned out to be in love with you and you realized you loved him back. I know mom you’ve been telling me this since before I was born.” Dan laughed.

The doorbell rang and he walked to the door to open it as his mom shouted after him: “Give love a chance Daniel!” Dan opened the door smiling, but his smile fell away when he saw Phil. He looked amazing, wearing a blue shirt that brought out his eyes perfectly. It took Dan an awkward amount of time to finally form a sentence in his head, but before he could even try to say it out loud, Phil spoke. “You look great Dan! Are you ready?” Dan just nodded, smiling at Phil. “You look really great too Phil. Is that a new shirt?” Dan asked as they walked toward Phil’s car.

They made small talk during the car ride, talking about the weather and school. It wasn’t much later when Phil parked the car next to a fancy looking restaurant. “Uhm, are you sure this isn’t too fancy?” Dan asked. “Relax Dan, it’s fine. My brother’s girlfriend works here, we’re not going to eat in the restaurant.” Before Dan could ask what he meant, Phil was greeted by a girl with bright red hair, who introduced herself as Cornelia. She took them to the roof of the restaurant, where a table was set up for two. It looked incredibly romantic, with candles and a single rose on the table. Wait… Was this a date?

Did Dan get asked out and didn’t realise? Of-fucking-course he would miss the first time he’d ever been asked out on a date. Dan realized he should probably say something. “Wow Phil, this looks amazing!” Phil smiled, sitting down after helping Dan into his seat like the gentleman he is. “So, want to start off with Ribena?” Phil said, like he was picking out wine or something. Dan smiled and nodded, looking through the menu.

Cornelia brought them their drinks and they ordered. Dan was about to launch into a story about some weird girl from school who got drunk and filmed herself singing along to High School Musical, but since this was probably a date, drunk girls from school are probably not on the list of acceptable conversation topics. Phil doesn’t seem to care very much though, as he himself starts explaining all the reasons why he hates his French teacher so much.

Dan laughs at his little anecdote, replying with some of his own, and by the time dinner arrives they both have tears in their eyes from laughing so much. Their conversation is light hearted and Dan enjoys his time with Phil immensely. There seems to be something between them, but Dan isn’t sure if it was because the ‘Maybe-Date’ or if it’d always been there, unnoticed. True, technically nothing had changed between them, but something felt different. Dan felt himself staring into Phil’s eyes a lot more, and wanting to take his hands when he lays them down on the table.

What was going on? Did he actually like Phil? Had he tried so hard to find the perfect guy to fall in love with, when all he had to do to fall in love with Phil was go on one date? All these questions are circling in Dan’s head like a whirlwind of doubt and confusion. He looks up at Phil, who’s just ordered desert for both of them. Phil smiles at him, and his eyes crinkle a little bit. God, he looks cute.

Phil clears his throat. “So, do you like it up here? It isn’t too much right? ‘Cause you could tell me if it is!” Dan chuckles. “No Phil, it’s great. It’s really great.” Dan smiles and Phil smiles back. Dan feels really giddy and then his mouth decides to speak before his mind approves the words. “You look really pretty.” As soon as he’s said it, he blushes and ducks his head. Why did he do that? Phil must think he’s insane! Or not, he was the person to arrange all of this in the first place. Phil doesn’t seem creeped out, actually he seems really glad. “Thanks Dan!” He smiles.

Soon their desert arrives: a giant bowl of Dame Blanche with two spoons. They finish desert way too soon, and Dan finds himself hoping they won’t go to the party. Going there would mean giving Lenn false hope. Also, they wouldn’t be able to talk much, and they’d end up going outside to talk anyway. Phil thanks Cornelia profoundly when she walks them to their car, before turning to Dan.

He looks a little shy as he speaks. “So uhm… I didn’t really have anything planned for the rest of the night. I didn’t really know if you still wanted to go to that party or not. You know, because you said you didn’t really like Lenn that much…” Dan smiles at his nervousness. “I don’t like him. Not like that anyway.” Phil smiles, relieved. “So what do you want to do?” Dan thought of that for a moment. To be honest, they were standing way to close for him to think of anything but one particular activity. He took a step closer, their lips merely moments away from touching. “I could think of something.” He said, trying to sound flirty.

Phil’s head instantly became as red as a tomato, as he nervously stumbled on his words. “Oh… Yeah-like uhm. I guess that- that’d be cool.” Dan laughed as he closed what little distance was left between them. He put his hand on Phil’s back and they stood there for a while, exchanging lazy, loving kisses. When they finally broke apart they were both grinning like idiots.

Dan smiled and put his forehead against Phil’s. “Just for the record, this was a date right?” Dan said. “Yeah it was.” Phil said, linking their hands and squeezing. “Good. Wanna go home and watch tv all night?” Dan smiled. Phil nodded and they got into the car. “By the way,” Said Phil, flashing him a devilish smile.

 

“Thanks to my help, you just completed Phase Five: making someone like you back.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey Guys!  
> I got this idea because a friend of mine mentioned that she would like a boyfriend, and so we made a list of all the guys in our year. Unfortunately we don’t have a Dan or Phil that attends our school, so she is still boyfriend-less (As far as I know (; haha)


End file.
